Anime- Japanese animation quotes

“the Japanese regard Tezuka [Osamu, creator of Astro Boy] one of the greatest people of the twentieth century, up there along with John F. Kennedy, Mahatma Gandhi, and the Beatles, and he is sometimes compared in the media with Leonardo da Vinci.” Frederik L. Schodt, “The Astro Boy Essays” pg viii

“Unlike American superheroes that usually fought for justice, [Astro Boy] also fought for the ultimate goal of postwar defeated Japan- peace” Frederik L. Schodt, “The Astro Boy Essays” pg 4. You should be able to get a couple of PhD dissertations out of that one, plus ten more out why he’s such a cute superhero

“Gundam was launched just to sell toy robots, to create a product that people would buy. There is no real inspiration behind it. He made Gundam because it was his job to make Gundam. And before Gundam, he made lots of animations that were also used to advertise robot toys” The creator of Gundam (through a translator) in Wrong about Japan, pg 95

“We Japanese want to live alongside robots, that is why we love Astro Boy” Anime fan Takao Imai in the New York Times, quoted in Wrong about Japan pg 90

“The agriculture ministry is not in charge of robots,”

spokesman Tsutomu Shimomura’s statement to the Associated Press on the story that bureaucrats were editing wikipedia manga entries during work time, according to this Guardian article.